Brooke McIntosh is over being catcalled while jogging — and she’s calling out the bullshit behaviour. The Mandurah businesswoman gets herself in the right headspace by jogging six days a week, covering an average 10km. “It is my time to zone out and make sense of the world,” she said.
“When I finish my run, I’ll be so calm, centred and grounded. I’m just way less stressed.” But Ms McIntosh’s afternoon clearing-the-head exercise ritual is increasingly being ruined by sexist men.
“Every single time I go for a run, I get catcalled,” she said. “It’s typically middle-aged or elderly men, typical smoke hanging out their mouth, in a group of mates, trash talking types.” Just recently the 28-year-old was on a run when a man yelled out to her: “Oi, darling, you have a stunning figure and tight arse.
” Like most catcalls, it gave Ms McIntosh an instant sinking feeling. “I can calm myself down but you feel so safe and then someone makes a comment and it sends you into a spiral,” she said. “Imagine if it was your daughter, sister or mother on the receiving end — you would be fast to jump in and stand up.
” It is not only lewd remarks that can make Ms McIntosh anxious — tooting horns and wolf whistles also give her the jitters, turning a mind-clearing jog into a scary run back home. “This one time and I was running at about 6pm and I felt like someone was following me,” she said. “I ended up running close to the highway, making my way back h.